


Healer

by elleorwhatever



Series: Healer [1]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Kirkwall, Multi, Slow Burn, The Gallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5770318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleorwhatever/pseuds/elleorwhatever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[some minor references to sexual assault, suicide, because, Kirkwall.]</p><p>In 9:31 Dragon, and through the events of DA2, Magda Trevelyan is a mage from Kirkwall, not Ostwick.  She is a healer in The Gallows and does her best to keep her head down and unnoticed.  But Kirkwall is careening towards disaster, and she can't avoid it forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Magda inspected the templar’s ankle, swelling and darkening from pooling blood.  She raised a brow.

Ser Thrask grimaced. “I know, I know.”

“And how did you come by this sprain?” she asked.  She leaned over the foot, using gentle fingers to feel the muscles, tendons, and bone.

Ser Thrask made no sound of pain, but that didn’t mean anything.  These older templars never would give them proper reports of their pain.  Warrior pride.  Perhaps it was just as well, because when they got to the point where they were wailing with abandon, they were often too far gone to help.

Kirkwall’s gray sun lit the Gallows’s clinic.  She could hear the guard by the doors yawning loudly.  It wasn’t a small room; open and airy, it housed twelve beds and could fit twice as many if pressed.  In truth, it was too much space for the Gallows’s small staff of healers.  Too much space, and too much work.  These days, healing was not the most popular area of study.

Ser Thrask sighed. “I made the mistake of challenging the Knight-Captain.”

She had begun pooling her magic around the ankle, but didn’t pause.

“For his position?   _Ser Thrask_.”

Further down, past a few sleeping patients, they could hear a pair of voices within a curtained off examination area.  The voices had started as a quiet murmur, but were rising in volume.

“Not like that,” he said. “We were drunk.”

That got a laugh out of her. “I might’ve been born in the dark, but it wasn’t yesterday, Ser Thrask. The Knight-Captain?   _Inebriated_?”

“We never did properly welcome our Fereldan captain,” he said. “So we went out last night.”

“Went out?  No other details you want to share?”

“We got a little in our cups, I challenged him, and got my rear neatly handed to me,” Thrask said. “Anything else isn’t for tender ears.”

Magda smiled.  Ser Thrask had brought her to the Circle many years ago, and he had helped her adjust. Clumsily drying her tears with gauntlet-ed hands, ruffling her hair. She adjusted the targeting of her magic a little.

“He’s been here a _year_ ,” she said.

Thrask waved a hand at her.

“–…just don’t see the point.  You know what it is, right?” This came from the two behind the curtain.  Their voices were louder now, a little frayed with irritation and tension.

“Recruit, if I don’t see it, I’m not giving you anything,” Mharen replied firmly.

“It’s not necessary!  I’m telling you–”

“ _Boy, you’ll do what Enchanter Mharen tells you, or_ _ **I’ll**_ _treat you_ ,” Thrask barked.

Silence.

“…Yes, Ser.”

There was some quiet rusting.  Mharen tutted.  More rustling, and the older woman stuck her head out of the curtains.

“Healer Magdalena,  come assist me with this?”

She was just finishing Thrask’s ankle. “Of course.”

The recruit was protesting. “ _Why_?”

“It’s part of her training,” Mharen said.

This was an outright lie.  Magda was the youngest of the fully-fledged healers, but with the amount of work they had to spread between the three of them, she was already an old hand at most ailments, wounds, and inflictions.  Curious, she ignored the complaints of the recruit and entered the examination area.

The young templar had his pants around his ankles.

“Ah,” said Magda, studying his genitals.

“And what would _that_ be, Healer Magda?” asked Mharen seriously.

“It appears,” said Magda seriously, “to be a moderate infection, likely contracted through sexual intercourse, Enchanter Mharen.”

“Very good,” said Mharen seriously. “And what would be the treatment of such an infection?”

Magda seriously tapped her chin. “I would recommend a spindleweed and dawn lotus based ointment applied twice daily for two weeks. Refraining from sexual contact during this time.  And _not_ going to the Blooming Rose ever again.”

The recruit had now turned red in the face.  Mharen produced a jar of ointment from a nearby cabinet.

“You’ll be right as rain in no time, Recruit Wilmod,” said Mharen seriously.

He silently put on his pants again, took the jar, and left.

Magda threw open the curtains.  Mharen sat down on a bed, laughing.  Thrask shook his head and chuckled.

“We’ve _warned_ the recruits about that place,” he said.

Magda bent back over his ankle, feeling it out and inspecting her work.

“Oh, you don’t know, Ser Thrask!” Mharen gasped. “We get more and more of them in here every year.  I wouldn’t waste my breath.”

Thrask laughed. “Idiots.”

“In fact, you might want to warn the full-fledged templars.  We get plenty of _them_ too. Have to keep a stock of that ointment.”

Magda nodded at Thrask.  He put his boot back on and tested his weight on it.

“My thanks, Magda,” he said.  He smiled at Mharen.  “Enchanter.”  He left, the clinic guard saluting as he passed.

She told Mharen, “You hardly needed me to embarrass him.”

“Oh yes, I did. Nothing hurts a young man’s ego like a pretty face.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “Then _yours_ would’ve sufficed.”

Mharen laughed.

The moment was cut short by shouting out in the hall.  They immediately stood and flung open the clinic doors.  

Magda smelled it first.

The smell of ozone-laced, spicy magefire and wet copper.  She smelled the smoky, acrid, burning pig smell.  It was becoming all too familiar to her.

They took one look at the blackened mass of flesh in the arms of two templars running down the hall, and the two healers quickly began preparing a bed.

“Here,” Mharen commanded when the templars entered.

They dropped the body onto the bed, one less gently than the other.

“ _Shit_ , I just polished this armor.”

The templars were covered in gore; blood, muddy soot, bits of black flesh.  One was a knight in full armor, and the other was Thrask in light leathers. Thrask must have met him in the hall.

Magda ignored the comment from the unfamiliar knight.  She focused on the patient. Male.  The face was melted, disfigured.  Still breathing, but very, very shallow.

Mharen threw her magic over the patient’s cracked and bleeding skin.  It created a cooling veil.  She carefully adjusted the temperature to prevent shock, and wove spells into the veil to stymie the blood loss.

Magda held her hands over the patient’s face.  She poured magic into him, down his throat and nostrils, down his larynx and pharynx, the trachea, bronchi, the lungs.  She willed the repair of the tissues.  She willed the blackness there into the void.  Even with her firm waves of power, it was bad.  Very bad.

Mharen deepened her magic.  She found the blood vessels and arteries.  She pooled it around the stuttering, trembling heart.  Their spells were linked, so Magda felt it as Mharen cradled the heart, willing it to readjust to its natural rhythm.  She felt it as the stutter became a shudder. And then – a sudden free fall.

Mharen cut her cooling spells, the blood regulators, and flooded the patient with her magic.  Magda joined her, opening her reserves.

But it wasn’t working.  He was gone.

Mharen reached for the lyrium potions.  Magda grabbed her wrist.

“Mharen.”

The older woman swallowed.  She lowered her hands.

A group of mages arguing elemental theory passed outside.  Some of the sleeping patients had woken, and were looking at them.  Thrask sighed.  He stood behind them.  The other knight had left some time ago; the clinic guard hadn’t moved an inch.

“Who is this?” Mharen asked.

“Apprentice Benned,” he said.  

Magda stood, and opened the record book on the clinic desk.

“Apprentice Benned, on the twentieth day of Justinian 9:31 Dragon, did die of suicide by self-immolation,” Magda said, writing.

She put down the pen.  She looked at Mharen.

“You should go get a sister,” Magda said.

The enchanter looked at her.  Her hair was starting to turn gray.  Her skin was soft, papery, folded in on itself around her mouth and eyes.  Mharen had been here for many more years, but she was still getting that look – a broken gaze and tightened jaw.  For this boy, who was one out of many cases they had treated, and would certainly not be the last.

“I’ll stay here with him,” Magda said.

Mharen nodded.  She left for the Gallows’s chantry.

Magda sat back by Benned’s side.

“Thank you for your help, but you should go too, Ser Thrask,” she said, as she began to apply a preserving charm on the body. “The Knight-Commander will miss you.”

Thrask squeezed her shoulder for a long moment.  Then he left.

Magda finished the charm.  She pulled a folded cotton sheet from a cupboard and laid it over the body.

-

That evening, Magda was finishing treatment of a mage that had an accident while experimenting with toxic spells when Knight-Captain Rutherford appeared in the clinic door.

He waited politely as she completed a spell and gave the mage a tonic.  She told her to sit quietly for an hour.

“Healer Magdalena,” the Knight-Captain said.

“Knight-Captain. Can I help you?”

He was in full knight armour, standing straight and imposing in the practiced manner of his order.  Or at least, the members of his order that were vigilant in their training and rigid in their duty.

“I’m looking into Apprentice Benned’s death,” he said.  “This is the fifth case in a year, and First Enchanter Orsino is concerned.”

Magda worked very hard to keep a polite expression.   _Concerned_.  After Mharen had returned with a sister to give final rites, Magda herself had gone to speak to the First Enchanter about a funereal.  He had been devastated.

To be frank, Orsino was not the most talented mage in the Gallows.  But he cared about the mages.  He still cared enough after five suicides in one year to shed tears for an apprentice of no particular talent.  He still cared enough to confront Knight-Commander Meredith after each death, after each smiting, after each Rite of Tranquility.

So to say Orsino was _concerned_ was a gross understatement.  Furthermore, Magda was struggling to not ask the Knight-Captain whether he was here because the First Enchanter was _concerned,_ or because the Knight-Commander wanted to appease the mages.

Magda walked away from the patient beds.  He followed silently, but she couldn’t tell from his expression whether he thought her presumptuous or not.  His eyes were still and focused.  Sometimes the quiet ones were the worst, though.  She’d have to be careful.

“I’ve talked to his classmates, and he was apparently concerned he wouldn’t pass his Harrowing,” the Captain continued.

“He had reason to worry,” Magda said. “I didn’t know him well, but I knew he was a few years ahead of me.  All of his friends have already had their Harrowings.”  Whether they passed it or not.

“We could no longer delay it,” Rutherford said.  A bit of steel rang in his voice.  Ah.   _There_ was the templar.

“As you say, Ser,” she said calmly.

He cleared his throat. “Knight Stanbury was alerted by another apprentice of smoke coming from Benned’s room.  He found him aflame in the wardrobe, dispelled the fire, and carried the boy here.  Stanbury says you and Enchanter Mharen treated him.”

“Mharen isn’t here; her shift’s over.  And Ser Thrask was here as well,” Magda said.

The Captain’s steady gaze flickered a little.  Remembering last night, was he?  If she looked closely, he did appear a little bloodshot.  She was half-tempted to offer him a hangover solution.

“Yes, I spoke to Ser Thrask, as well.  He says you were unable to revive Apprentice Benned.”

Magda straighened. “Apprentice Benned was brought here earlier today.  He was severely burned on nearly the entire surface of his body, and his skin was cracked and bleeding.  He was still breathing, however…” She described Benned’s condition and their treatment of him, what spells they used and how his heart failed.

Rutherford nodded. “Will you write me a report?”

“Of course, Knight-Captain.”

She thought he was going to leave, but he lingered, looking at the clinic.  Five beds were filled.  A few training accidents, mostly magical wounds and ailments.

“You’ve seen all of these self-immolations?” Rutherford asked.

“Yes, Ser.”

“I’ve looked through the records, this year has had more than most.”

Magda paused. “That would be correct, Ser.”

He said nothing. His gaze was off somewhere else.  He started to speak, but thought better of it.  Of whatever it was he was going to say.

“You’re the only healer on duty?”

“Yes, Ser.”

“I’ll let you return to your work.”

“Thank you, Knight-Captain.”

He left, the templars in the beds and the clinic guard saluting him.

Magda very much wanted to sigh in relief, and fall into a chair.  But she held herself up, kept her face bland.  She went to check on the nearest patient.

As she worked, she thought.  At night when things were quiet and in the crowded noise of the dining hall, the mages would whisper to one another about the Knight-Captain and the Circle at Kinloch Hold.  That he had been the sole survivor of a tower filled with abominations.

No one could leave that behind and not bring along scars and prejudices.  He had always been polite, though, during her handful of personal run-ins with him. And she’d never heard of him taking advantage of a mage.  But was that the measure of a good templar?  Manners and never sexually abusing your charges?

He was thoroughly Meredith’s man.  He followed her commands to a T, and practiced her policies on initiative.

The Captain had turned in Thieboldt for having a book on blood magic.  He had roughly interrogated Marin over a secret passage out of the Gallows.  He had been the executor of many of the Rites of Tranquility in the past year.

Magda believed firmly in keeping her head down and wearing a constant attitude of deference around the templars.  It kept you from attracting attention.  And besides, the templars depended as much as the mages did on the healers.  More so, even.  If she quietly went on working, she wouldn’t have to worry.

It helped that the Trevelyans were noble.  Even Meredith would pause before giving Magda any drastic punishments.  Maybe she should feel bad about relying on her family connections, but she had never stepped out of line and had no intentions to.  So even without them, she’d be fine.

Senior Enchanter Chaya relieved her from the night shift about an hour before sunrise.

“'Nother immolation yesterday,” Chaya said.

“Yes,” Magda said, reaching for the water pot for the Senior Enchanter’s coffee. She tapped the rune on its side and it began to heat up.

“Mharen told me. Idiot, blubbering over another mediocre apprentice,” Chaya snorted.

Magda poured the water into a coffee press. “When you see her today, tell her the Knight-Captain needs a written report.”

“He was sniffing around here?”

“Yes.”

The elderly elf curled her lip. “What’s there to investigate?  Like they don’t know why the fuck anyone doesn’t want a Harrowing.”

The clinic guard cleared his throat.

“Shut the fuck up,” Chaya told him. “Or next time you break a leg I’ll set it so you could serve high tea off it.”

Magda served the Senior Enchanter her coffee and left.  As charming as Chaya was, Magda had just pulled a sixteen hour shift.  She would like very much now to sleep.

She left the clinic, walked across the courtyard where the templars were already starting on morning exercises, up the stairs, and entered the mage quarters.

She opened the room she shared with Elsa.  Magda was tempted to fall into her bed immediately, but instead she lit a candle and placed it on the room’s only desk.  Better to write the report now.

She pulled parchment towards her and a pen.  As she looked through the drawers of the little cupboard beside the desk for ink, Magda noticed something.

Elsa wasn’t in her bed.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Note: I feel a bit bad for Wilmod’s scene, because your health provider should never make you feel bad about an STI; but it’s just fanfiction.  And I’m sure every nurse ever has wanted to give difficult patients a hard time. And I got to use the word “genitals.”]


	2. Chapter 2

Magda stood.

Her pulse quickened, accelerated, as she stared at an empty point of space.

_She’s left.  She’s left, just like him._

It was the small hours of the morning, at least an hour before curfew ended.  Elsa had no business being out of bed.

Magda couldn’t go looking for her; she would have to pass three guards to leave the general mage’s barracks.  It would be different if they were still with the apprentices where there were fewer guards.  It _had_ been easier then.  Tristan had done it: past one guard and left the Gallows forever.

But that was several years ago.  Magda had long since graduated, and Elsa was an Enchanter already.  Their hall was watched by six guards, three either way to an exit.  There was no way Elsa could have left past curfew.

Magda forced herself to move.  She rifled through the papers and books on their desk.  Nothing more unusual than the hundreds of pages of notes on Elsa’s dozens of projects, each more ridiculously ambitious than the last.

Temporal displacement, indeed.

Magda pulled back Elsa’s covers, searched the pockets of all her discarded robes littering the floor.  She found nothing more interesting than more scraps of notes and an apple core.

She paced, chewing on her tongue, blood thumping in her ears.  She had been exhausted a moment ago, but now she was jittery with fear.

If Elsa was sick and went to the clinic, they’d have met in the hall.  Had she done something, finally, to be detained by the templars?

“ _What have you done?_ ” she whispered.

Magda sat.  She would have to wait to leave until the call to morning service.  When it did ring, almost an hour later, she made herself stand slowly, calmly.

The halls were still empty.  The morning chill, damp with the salty fog off Kirkwall Bay, gripped her gut, clenching painfully.  She passed the guards, and if not for the little floating puffs of breath emanating from their visors, they could be statues.  They could be the stone guardians of an ancient king’s tomb, demons dwelling within their hollow armor plate.  Still as dust, they waited to eviscerate intruders.

The cold crystalized the smell of mint and lemon and lye drifting from the polished granite of the Gallows’s halls.

Magda lived with a certain set of paths.  There was the path to the clinic from her room, the path to the Great Hall, the path to the chapel.  These were the places she walked.  The places where her existence was permitted.  She had read about, been told of, other places.  Antiva, Fereldan, Orlais, Tevinter.  She even remembered a little bit of her life with the Trevelyans in their estate just outside of Kirkwall.

But these _other_ places had a fairy tale, infantile quality.  As if they were no longer worth her thought, as a grown woman.  A woman grown up to be ground down by the Circle.  The Gallows was where she existed, was where she was permitted to exist.

Magda entered the chapel.

It was small, and thick with smoke from the holy brazier behind the altar.  The chapel was hewn from Gallows granite, gray.  The gridded stone floor was dotted with filled-in, circular indents that were probably once drains.  Perhaps it was once a slave holding cell.

The pews were nearly empty, so Magda saw the back of Elsa’s blonde head at once.

She quietly sat by her.  They stared straight ahead, but Magda could see a little of the other girl’s serene almost-smile beyond the straight curtain of golden hair.  Elsa glanced back at her, and her eyebrows waggled mischievously.

Magda ignored this, annoyed.  Damn her.

Mages and templars began to quietly fill the pews of the chapel.  Mages to the left, templars to the right.  Mharen passed them, glancing at Magda with a curious look.  The healers were an exception among the mages; because of their erratic hours, they weren’t required to attend every service.

Magda glanced up where the Knight-Commander was just sitting down.  She hoped no one noted it as too unusual that she was here after being on duty all night.

Mother Selwin began a prayer.  

As one, they bent their heads.  Like the leaves of a great plant, the mages and templars bent toward the Chantry Mother.  They bent towards the holy brazier, its literal flame standing for the metaphysical warmth of Andraste’s embrace.  They bent out of habit, or out of fear of retribution from the system.  Perhaps some even bent in hope of divine grace.

The relief Magda had felt at seeing Elsa safe washed away the adrenaline she’d felt earlier, leaving behind exhaustion.  Her mind wandered as the Mother and Sisters began to sing the Chant.

Benned’s funeral pyre was probably already built.  The funeral would be later today, taking the place of evening services.  Black cracked flesh, flesh far too hot.  He would be burned a second time this evening, searing his flesh until it went back to dust and ash.  It seemed like overkill.

When she had been an apprentice in the clinic, Tristan had once stayed there with pneumonia.  His flesh had felt like that; hot and dry and tender.

But she couldn’t think of that now.  The Chant was warm and full and curvaceous.  It made her feel weak, boneless.  Like she felt as a child during service, the lilt of Andraste’s blessing cradling her, soothing her to sleep as her mother, her real mother, the one that had carried Magda inside her own body, as her mother held her on her lap.  The smell of her mother, though she could no longer remember what it exactly was, but it was the smell of tenderness and intimacy.  The feathery touch of fingers in her hair.

Magda blinked furiously.  She couldn’t think of that now.  She stared resolutely at the gray stone of the room, the same gray stone that meant death and chill to her.  She stayed awake this way, through the rest of the Chant.

Afterwards, Magda grabbed Elsa, pulling her to the side.  Nowhere conspicuous, still within eyesight of the crowd emptying from the chapel, but far away enough to not be easily overheard.

“Do you have any idea how worried I was?” Magda said in a low, calm tone.  To be shrill, over-emotional, even in whispers, was to invite attention.

Elsa grinned. “See, darling?  It’d kill you to be without me.  So you should just follow my lead.”

“This isn’t funny.  And you’d just lead us straight to a Rite.”

“You’re just cranky from lack of sleep.”

“Don’t patronize me.  Did you know there was an immolation yesterday?”

Magda had said it to shame her, but immediately regretted it, as instead Elsa’s face twisted with fury.  She pointedly glanced at the thinning crowd behind her roommate.  Elsa visibly struggled to calm her expression.

“Good for them,” she said venomously. “Get out any way you can, I say.”

“ _Elsa_.”

Elsa sighed, rolled her eyes.  Magda frowned at her.

“Where were you last night?”

“Later.  Go to bed, you look dead on your feet.”

Elsa turned away, heading towards the Great Hall for breakfast.

-

Magda was seven years old again, and hiding from the others.  She wanted to go home.  She wanted Hessen and Papa and Mama.  

She sat curled up, hands clutching her ankles in.  Dusty stacks of books rose to either side of her, cocooning her, caving her in with their papery musk.

Enchanter Illya was calling for her outside, up and down the halls.

But Magda didn’t want Enchanter Illya.  She smelled like armpits and yelled too much.  Magda didn’t want the other children, either.  They were demon children and ate with their mouths open.  Magda didn’t want to eat with her mouth open, chomping and drooling and forgetting all of Papa’s etiquette.  She didn’t want to be a demon child.

Magda rubbed her finger where the old man had cut it and taken her blood and put it into a little glass tube.  Would they make her full of demons with that?

The door to Magda’s forgotten storeroom opened.

Her breath caught.  She drew herself in even tighter.

“Maaaaggie!”

“Maggie-Maggie-Maaaaaggie!”

“She’s not in here.”

“You don’t know.”

“Why do you even care?”

“It’s interesting.”

“No, it’s not.  She never talks.  She’s boring.”

“Go suck balls.”

“What?!   _You go_ \--”

The boy stopped, because he had walked to the back of the room where Magda was clearly visible.

“Oh.  Here she is.”

A girl appeared beside him.  She was blonde, and she was always talking.  The others liked her.  Elsa.  She didn’t remember the boy’s name.

“Hi, Maggie!”

Magda said nothing, looking at them.

“What are you hiding for?”

Magda glared.

“Hey!” said Elsa. “Stop that!”

Magda stuck her tongue out.

“ _Hey_!”

Elsa advanced on her.

This was alarming; Magda didn’t want a demon child so close.  Who yanked their chain?  She wasn’t bothering anyone.  Why couldn’t they all just leave her alone?  Magda threw all caution to the wind. She blew a raspberry.

Elsa slapped her.

Magda stood, infuriated.  She shoved the other girl.  Elsa growled, shoving back.  And then the two of them were flailing, slapping, punching, screeching.  The boy moved back, staring wide-eyed at the multi-limbed creature crashing against the shelves and stacks of scattering parchment.

Then Enchanter Illya, hearing the ruckus, found them.  After telling them off, the three children were lined up against the wall, out in a hall where the other young apprentices passed by.  The Enchanter had them squatted against the wall, so that their thighs and calves were burning with effort.  Their classmates stared, giggled, jeered.  The boy cried silently.  Magda and Elsa grit their teeth.

“What’s your problem anyway?” Elsa hissed.

Magda looked at her.  “Don’t call me Maggie.  My name is Magda.”

-

Magda ended up sleeping through the funeral.

She woke like she always did, suddenly and like falling into a cool tub of water.  Her eyes opened easily as she sat up quickly.  Her relationship with sleep was a strange one.  Her waking mind was always preoccupied with it; if the surface of her thoughts was not filled with longing for sleep, it was somewhere underneath in the back of her mind.  Whenever Magda was finally able to sink into the thin mattress standard in the barracks, exhaustion sank her into sleep.  But, her sleep was no deep ocean; it was a shallow pool that was all too easy for her to escape after a few short hours.

Her sleep was a cheap thing, like some back-alley whore, obsessed over pre-coitus, yet discarded so easily after gratification.

Elsa wasn’t in the room, but even without a window in the room Magda could tell it was still afternoon.  There was light coming from underneath the door, and her body did not have the alert tenseness, anxiety she felt when she’d overslept.

Magda stood and pulled off the robes she’d worn the previous day.  As she redressed, she saw an unopened letter left on the desk.

It was addressed to her, from her brother.

_Magda,_

_Dad’s glad to hear you liked the tinder he calls novels, but you already know that since he sent you a letter telling you so.  He’s standing at my shoulder until I tell you again.  And he says that Hessen, you’re a smartass and they’re not tinder, and he loves you Magda, you’re the favorite.  Okay?_

_Anyway.  The wheat is coming on well; we’ll have a good harvest this year.  The pigs are getting big as dragons, too.  Mother is still holding out on the new contract with the Viscount.  He keeps offering more money, she keeps hedging for new land grants.  She’s paid for rumors to be spread that she’s considering Ostwick or even Fereldans -- Highever._

_I’m a little worried that she’s more than half-serious about the latter; it’s not too far to ship across the Waking Sea, after all.  Dad and Uncle could finagle some sort of pond skipper, I’m sure.  But what a nightmare Great Aunt Lucille would become.  And you know exactly who would be thrown in her path.  (Hint: me!!)_

_Lastly, I’m going to be in Kirkwall to notarize some documents three days from now.  I’m coming to visit, so no working!  Make time for me._

_Love,_

_Hessen_

Magda tucked the letter into a box filled with other letters from her family.  She sat at the desk and wrote a reply to Hessen, saying yes, she’d make time for him as long as he brought her some of those little chocolate cakes filled with raspberries and topped with fruit he’d bought at some fancy patisserie in the city the last time.

She was halfway through her report for Captain Rutherford when Elsa came into the room.

She heaved a bunch of books and scrolls onto Magda’s bed with a loud _thump_.

“Apprentices!” Elsa groaned, jumping onto her own bed.

Magda continued writing.

“ _We_ weren’t that bad when we were that age, were we?  We can’t have been.” Elsa glared at Magda.

“They won’t do the homework, they won’t practice, and apparently they can’t read because they can’t even copy a runic circle even when it’s right in front of them,” she continued. “And they’re a bunch of pussies!”

“Yes, fire magic summons fire!  And fire is hot!  But it’s, _fire magic_.”

Elsa said this last, _fire magic_ , with reverence and satisfaction, as though she expected it to be self-evident why everyone should be fascinated by the power, the beauty of fire.  Of, in fact, all magic.  Of the thrill, the wonder of _willing_ the world to change, changing what seemed so immutable.  Of having power at all.

“Elsa,” Magda said, turning to her.  She let her tone speak for her, rather than putting her concern into words.

Elsa sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed.  She leaned forward.  Magda saw her expression turn more serious than she’d ever seen before.  Elsa was like that; even discussing death, she’d let a little bit of sparkle light her eyes, tug at the corner of her mouth.  But now, she leaned towards her, blue eyes set and stony.

“Magda.  If I told you I had a way.   _A_ _plan_.”

Elsa kept her voice low, calm.

“Would you follow me?”

Magda looked at her.  Her pen was dripping ink on her fingers.  She wanted it.  She _wanted_ it.  She wanted new paths.  She wanted to find the fancy patisserie herself, and pull out a purse of coins she’d earned and whose fates she, and she alone, could decide on, and smile at the store owner, and she’d lay coins on the counter and take a pretty white cardboard box.  She _wanted_ it.

“Elsa, I can’t.”

Elsa lay back down and turned to the wall.

“Thought as much,” she said bitterly.

They didn’t talk anymore as Magda finished her report.  She left, quietly closing the door behind her.

-

The Captain wasn’t in his office, so Magda left the report with a recruit.  She went to the clinic to begin her shift.  Another all-nighter, and then some.

Mharen was still there, and lingered to chat with Magda before leaving.  Her soft skin creasing, she held her arms around her softened body, and told the younger woman about the cremation, the service.  Seeing her grow increasingly melancholy, Magda changed topics.

“Hessen’s coming to visit,” she said.

“ _Is_ he, now?” Mharen grinned. “He still handsome?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me when you see him.  He says the bruise you gave him’s finally gone.”

“What a shame!  I’ll have to pinch him again.”

Magda rolled her eyes.

“The Chant was lovely this morning,” Mharen said, eyeing her.

“It was,” she said noncommittally.

They continued chatting until Mharen left, yawning.  The night was quiet, with few beds to look after, and only minor treatments to attend to.  Magda spent most of her time studying a text on long-term effects of potions on physiology, one of many she kept in the clinic and rotated out as she finished.  

How many hours had she spent pouring over medical books, over and over until their knowledge was burned into her memory?  She was a mage that would rarely master a technique on first try.  She practiced, practiced, and practiced.  Truthfully, she found the memorization difficult at best, but she dreaded the day someone would be brought to her suffering with something she couldn’t identify, didn’t know how to treat.  So, she steadily, slowly, consumed every book of healing she could find.

“You, healer.”

Magda looked up.

Ser Alrik stood in the door, holding a Tranquil by the shoulder.  The Tranquil was a man, older, with cropped gray hair and a neat gray beard.  He was newly Tranquil; the brand on his forehead was an angry red, the flesh around it puffed up and inflamed.  It was also bleeding steadily, rivulets running around the man’s features.  They’d done a poor job of it.

Magda stood, and gestured at a nearby bed.  Alrik pushed the Tranquil over and sat him down on the edge.  She began to clean the blood off, trying to ignore Alrik’s burning blue eyes.  The Tranquil man watched her quietly.  She thought he might be one of the Fereldans they’d brought in recently, from Kinloch Hold.  Karl, maybe?

His eyes were blue, too.  They followed her motions, but did not seem to see, truly.  Like freestanding glass, nothing on either side.  Looking into his eyes, into any Tranquil’s face, made her feel ill.

She made the mistake of glancing up at the templar.  She quickly lowered her eyes.  The Rite of Tranquility was Alrik’s responsibility, and there was not a single mage in the Gallows that did not break into a sweat when his gaze turned on them.  From force of will, her hands did not shake, and her breath was steady, but both Alrik’s eyes and the Tranquil’s made the gorge in her throat rise.

As Magda healed the new brand, another templar entered the clinic.  A woman she recognized as Alrik’s subordinate.  She waited silently.

The brand cleaned and the swelling and irritation soothed, Magda stepped away.  She tucked her hands behind her back and lowered her head towards Alrik.

“Take him,” he said to the other templar.

“Ser,” she said.  She grabbed the Tranquil by the elbow, ignored his stumbling as he stood, and shoved him out the door.

“Healer,” Alrik said to Magda.

“Ser.”

With that, Alrik left.  Magda stared at the space he had once occupied, aware of the clinic guard watching her.


	3. Chapter 3

Elsa and Magda didn’t speak for several days.

It wasn’t difficult to avoid one another; Magda had night duty at the clinic and Elsa taught during the day, working on her research in the evenings.  They would come back to the room, dark and quiet, the other sleeping, and not say a word.  This had been the case before, of course, but now the silence wasn’t the comfortable understanding of friends with different schedules; it was the stiff disquiet of resentment. 

They’d had fights before, but rarely the cold-shoulder type.  It wasn’t in Elsa’s nature to leave her anger unsaid.  She was more likely to blow up and then quickly cool to forgiveness.  Magda hated it, because she felt that Elsa had finally gotten fed up with her.  With her weakness.

Yes, Magda was the weak one.  She was always the weak one.  Had always been.

“Remember, you _promised_ ,” Mharen warned.

Magda smiled. “I know.”

“If I don’t see that little Antivan arse--”

“Oh, Maker, Mharen, _ugh_ ,” Magda laughed. “And it’s half-Antivan!”

“It could be half-Qunari and I’d still want a look at it,” she said. “I’m only doing this because--”

“Because I promised.  I remember.”

“Good.  Now, off with you!”

Magda left the clinic as bid.  Mharen was covering for her while she visited with Hessen.  She entered the main courtyard of the Gallows, and spotted him sitting under an awning.  A few templars and mages loitered, chatting in small groups.  It was late in the afternoon, in the midst of the high heat of summer, when a breeze is too weak to stir the heady weight of Kirkwall’s warmth and stink.  The hypnotic drone of cicadas plopped lazily from the court’s little trees.

The heavy cotton of her circle robes dragged on her, pulling on her shoulders, making her feel small, diminished.  They enclosed her in an identity, and marked her by a rank: mage.  She sweated underneath them, enviously eyeing her brother’s light silken tunic, white and cool.

“Magda,” he said, hugging her.

She smiled. “Hessen.”

He was tall, well-made, spice-colored.  Dark hair, dark eyes.  The dark, stark brows that were intense on Magda, were playful and wriggly on him.

Hessen winked and, with a flourish, produced a lovely little white box.

Magda took the box, smiling softly, looking down and following the white twine tied around it with a finger.  Hessen cocked his head, looking into her eyes.  She broadened her smile for him.

“Thank you,” she said.

She set it aside. “You finished your business?”

Hessen leaned back, and groaned loudly. “Yes.  After waiting on an impressive succession of under-clerks, clerks, under-secretaries, secretaries, etcetera etcetera.   You could build a bloody militia with all the paper-pushers I’ve seen today.  Where do they keep them all?  Has the Viscount got some sort of bureaucrat breeding program?”

“I hear they’re fed the tears of Free Marcher lordlings,” Magda said.

“I don’t doubt it.  Sounds like a competitive market, though.  The overhead might be high, but think of the profit!”

“You could hold a hunt or a ball, lay a trap, and round up all your friends.”

“I bet Osil’s tears are _particularly_ delicious.”

Magda laughed. “Poor little country boy.  All sad in the big, scary city.”

Hessen grinned, ruffled her hair roughly. “It’ll be a hot day in the Void when my little sister gets away with calling me ‘little boy’.”

She raised her hands. “Alright, alright.  I yield.”

They chatted for a while.  Dad had taken up painting.  It was filling the second floor with fumes, and was driving Mother crazy.  As usual, she wouldn’t admit it, though, and had taken to stewing silently when Dad nattered on about his newest hobby.  In retaliation, Mother had taken up threats about engagements to Lord so-and-so’s daughters for Hessen.

“Eww, girls!” Hessen said.

“You’re a Trevelyan, Hessen.  It’s your duty to carry on the name.”

He laughed. “You should see Dad’s face when she starts on it.  Like a kicked puppy. ‘ _But he’s a baby_!’”

It was getting on in the evening.  The white stone of the court was awash with gold and pumpkin light. The conversation wound down, and they looked in on Mharen in the clinic.  The woman squealed, Hessen squealed, and he swept her into a dramatic kiss.  On the cheek.  Magda _thought_ it was on the cheek, anyway.  Some excited chatter later, with a pointed throat-clearing by the guard at the door, Hessen said goodbye to Mharen, who slapped him on the ass.

Outside, in the hall, he lingered by Magda.  He pulled her into a hug.

“Stiff upper lip, champ.  And don’t share those cakes.  I bought them for _you_.”

She nodded. “Goodbye, Hessen.”

He left, and Magda was left wondering what her life would be like if she were not here, in the Gallows.  Buying gifts for her family, knowing who Osil was, arguing with her mother about an engagement.  She loved her brother, her family, but sometimes the warmth they brought with them with every visit was painful.  Like the prickle of numb fingers unthawing.

-

Justinian passed into Solace, and the heat matured into the solemn swelter of a summer gaining momentum.  In the light of day, the clinic smelled of sweat, salt off the bay, damp cotton, blood and bitter herbs.  At night, when there was at least some relief from the heat, the lemon and lye of the Gallows gray stone followed Magda everywhere.  It was a restless time of internal keening for her, the muggy tangle of day-sleeping no escape for the dim and dark lonely halls of her waking hours.

Magda gazed at the open cupboard.  The linens were running low.  She shut the cupboard doors, looking down the room.  The beds were empty.  Sometimes there would be weeks like this; blessedly quiet and incident free.

She stood in front of the guard, who straightened as she approached.  This one was starting to be a regular while she was on duty.  Young, pale and ruddy.  She didn’t know his name.

“I need to get more linens,” Magda said.

“But you’re the only one here…”

“There’s no one to look after.  It’ll be fine.”

He blinked. “Right.  I’ll.  I’ll escort you then.”

She nodded, picked up a large canvas bag and folded it under her arm.

They walked the quiet halls, other guards being the only souls they encountered.  Silent visors turned to watch them pass.

Magda glanced at her companion from the corner of her eye.  He was trying not to look at her, or his fellow templars.  They walked toward the storage rooms, past the chapel.

Magda stopped.

The chapel doors were open.  This late, all the sisters and Mother Selwin would be long in bed.  She ignored her guard’s small sound of inquiry, and stepped over the chapel’s threshold.  The dark was opaque.

But then she made out a figure sitting in a pew toward the front.

“Who’s there?” the young templar called, unsheathing his sword.

The person turned toward them.

“Put that away, James, you little shit.”

Magda started. “Ser Thrask?”

Ser Thrask said nothing, sinking into his seat.  She approached him, and smelled a strong tang of alcohol.

Thrask glanced up at her.  His face was ashen, blood-shot, his eyes limp and heavy and red.  His hair was a mess, and he was holding a dark glass bottle.

“What’re you doing here?” he said.

“I was going to get linens,” she said. “What’re you doing here?”

He was silent, a little bent over, a little folded into himself.  His shoulders held a coiled tension.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

He was silent, so she put a hand on his shoulder.  He flinched, shook his head with a sound like the distant metal rasp of the harbor chains.

“Oh, Magda, no.  How did this happen?” he gasped.

Magda looked up at the young templar staring wide-eyed at Thrask.

“Go back to the clinic,” she told him.

“What?  I can’t leave--”

“It’s fine.  Just go.”

“I--” he stopped.  Looked at his superior quaking under her hand.  He nodded at her and left.

Magda kneeled by Thrask.  And then he was telling her that his daughter, Olivia, was dead and it was his fault why hadn’t he protected her why hadn’t he been there for her when she needed him most why couldn’t she have waited blast her the stubborn fool.  Why couldn’t he have told her he loved her more often?  Why hadn’t he given her a better life?  Had she suffered, did she call for him, did she know how much he needed her?

And Magda held him, shaking, they were both shaking, orphans, and she became a lifeboat, a buoy on a tipping sea of heartbreak.

Thrask held her face.

“Be strong, Magda.  Don’t ever give in.  Don’t ever fall to demons.  I couldn’t take it.”

She looked back into his face, so much older than she remembered, so broken, and she wondered at the feeling rising within her: love and disappointment all at once.

-

In the following days, Thrask took some time off.  Magda suspected the Knight-Commander was glad to have the “soft” and busybody knight out of her hair.  It was no secret that a large number of templars (and mages) respected Thrask, despite his lack of promotion in several years.  He was another stone in Meredith’s craw, along with every insolent mage.

“And _this_ , apprentices, is an abomination of the night,” Senior Enchanter Chaya said, gesturing at Magda standing beside her.

The two young mages in front of them stared at her.  One, the human, glanced at the templar at the door.  Magda schooled her expression to cool indifference.

The elf, large-eyed, leaned forward.

“You’re-- You’re really--” he stopped.

“Fuck no, she’s not an abomination,” Chaya said.

The boys relaxed.

Chaya turned to Magda, rolling her rheumy eyes. “Magda, this is Tidd and Hughes.  The apprentices.  You two, this is Healer Magdalena.  You haven’t seen her because she has shit shift.”

They stared blankly.

“Night duty,” Magda supplied.

“Don’t interrupt me,” Chaya snapped. “Soon, I’ll be having you work with her as part of your training.”

“But,” Hughes, the human, said, “what about day classes?”

The Senior Enchanter shrugged her thin, bony shoulders. “Not my problem.”

The apprentices looked at each other, but seemed to have learned better than to argue at this point.  They bobbed their heads toward Magda, giving polite greetings.

Magda nodded, trying not to sigh.  Night duty was terrible for the sleep schedule; no sooner would you become used to the flipping of day and night than you had to do something in the day that would throw everything off for weeks.  But at least night duty was apprentice-free.  Elsa and Mahren, and even Chaya to some extent, were the ones that could teach.  She was dreading this.

Yet they were lucky to have any apprentices at all.  The Elemental and Primal schools were the popular ones nowadays, the ones overflowing with apprentices.  They were the schools that flashed, blazed, and rumbled, the ones that made the templars shift uneasily in their armor.

“Not to interrupt,” said the enchanter laying on a bed as they stood talking over her. “But could we get on with it?”

She spoke through gritted teeth, sweating and holding her arm gingerly.  It was covered, from wrist to deltoid, in a blistering, vile-smelling potion burn.  Little splash burns spotted her robes around the shoulder and chest, and dotted her face.  To Tidd and Hughes’s credit, they did not flinch from the smell or the sight.

Chaya glared at her, but nodded at Magda.

“Go ahead.  They should see someone else working.”

She sat, and rose her hands above the burn, when a clatter at the clinic door made them all look up.  The burned enchanter groaned.

It was the guard saluting to Knight-Captain Rutherford in the door.

“Mother--” Chaya swore.  She thrust her chin at Magda. “ _You_ take care of that.”

Magda shook her head in exasperation.  She stood, and Chaya shoved Tidd into her seat.

“Now, do as I’ve shown you.”

“You want _me_ to do it?”

“Chaya, you’re letting an _apprentice_ meddle with my arm?!”

“That’s _Senior Enchanter_ Chaya.”

Ignoring them, Magda approached the Knight-Captain.  He didn’t appear hurt or ill.  He stood watching her, as dour-faced and curly-haired as ever.

“Knight-Captain.  Can I help you, Ser?”

“Healer.  I had some questions about Recruit Wilmod and Recruit Keran, and some of the others.”

His gaze was turning a bit sharp, unsettling her.  Magda quietly folded her hands and waited.

“The past few days, they’ve been going missing, one by one.  Here at night, and then not reporting for morning drill.”

She hadn’t heard of this.  Recruits, disappearing?  Couldn’t they just be shirking their duty?  Had a taste of the templar life, and not found it to their liking?

“I’ve heard several of them have come _here_ for treatment,” the Knight-Captain said.  He was definitely starting to bristle.

He suspected her, or at least one of the healers.  Of doing… _something_ , with the recruits.  She stilled herself and kept her gaze steady on his eyes.

“Yes, we’ve recently seen several recruits here, Ser.”

He tapped a boot. “For what?”

She pursed her lips. “I take the care of my patients seriously, Ser.  Their health is their own business.”

The Knight-Captain looked at her, grimacing.  Finally, he sighed.

“Healer, please.  These recruits are my responsibility.  I owe their families to care for their well-being and safety.  And I’m afraid that they are being threatened.  I promise you, anything you tell me will stay between us.  Anything at all could help.”

Magda relaxed her shoulders.

“Oh, well…  Several of the recruits have come in for infections received from sexual contact.”

The Knight-Captain stared at her, his pale face losing all sober earnestness.  Whatever he had been expecting, it was clearly not this.  He made a strange fidgety motion with his gauntlets and squinted at her.

“Err, what did you say?”

“Infections.  Rashes.  Contracted through intercourse.”

Magda was having a hard time not laughing at his growing consternation.  This was ridiculous.  The man could slam her to the floor with the force of a smite that rendered her magicless, helpless.  He could banish her soul, leaving her an empty shell, tranquil.  And she was trying not to laugh at him?

“I would look at the Blooming Rose, Ser.  It’s popular among the recruits.  And the knights.  The place is an epidemic, really.”

“The Blooming Rose.”

“It’s a, ah, brothel.  Ser.”

“I _know_ ,” the Knight-Captain stopped.  Cleared his throat. “I mean.  I am aware.  Thank you, Healer.”

“Ser.”

He left quickly, and was it her imagination or was that stern grimace accompanied by pink ears?


	4. Chapter 4

"Healer," barked a voice.  The same voice, presumably, banging on the door.

Magda sat up, instantly awake.  She traded looks with Elsa, sitting at the desk.  Elsa darkened; she stood and opened the door.

A templar knight pushed past her.  The visor roamed over their beds, their belongings, such as they were.  The visor turned on Magda.

"You're needed in the clinic, healer."

She stood, prepared to run in her nightgown.  "A bad case?"

"No.  Get dressed."

The templar left.  Magda and Elsa said nothing to each other.  She quickly pulled off her gown, and threw on robes.  She went to the door.

"Magda."

She stopped.  Elsa looked at her, eyes set and even... worried?

"Let's talk later."

Magda paused. "Sure."

She left their room.  The knight was waiting outside the door.  A guantlet gestured down the hall.  They walked in the direction of the clinic.  The silent templar stayed close, and Magda consciously controlled her breathing.

In the clinic, Chaya and the apprentices were flanked by two other templars.  Magda recognized the older, square-jawed one as Ser Emeric.

"Healer, do you know where Enchanter Mharen is?" Emeric asked.

"What?  Her room or something, I'd- it's her shift now, did she not report?"

"No, she didn't," Emeric said. "As far as we can tell, she's nowhere in The Gallows.  Now, do you know where she is?"

Armor creaked metallically as the templars shifted.  Magda's throat caught.  She glanced at Chaya.  Her cloudy eyes were hard with restrained thunder.  This wasn't about where Mharen was.  They had her phylactery; what they wanted was to know whether Magda was complicit with whatever Mharen had done.

Unless they didn't have Mharen's phylactery.  But that didn't seem like her.  She wasn't the rebellious type.  Where could she have possibly gone?

“No, Ser,” Magda said.

Emeric sighed. “I’m not accusing you of anything, but I need to get to the bottom of this.”

“Of course, Ser.”

“She’d been sent flowers recently.  That mean anything to you?”

Flowers?  If Mharen had had a lover, there was no way she would have kept quiet about it.  Chaya was always calling her a ‘romantic idiot.’  She devoured cheap pulp novels and loved to gossip about relationships.  If she’d had somebody, she would have said something wouldn’t she?

“No, she never said anything to me about… that, Ser,” Magda said.

“Hmm,” the templar ran a hand through gray hair.  He studied her. “When did you speak to her last?”

They interrogated her for a while.  No, she seemed the same the last Magda saw her.  No, no unusual behavior.  No, they didn’t know if she had any new, strange acquaintances.  No, she didn’t know where the woman might have gone.

Emeric sighed again. “I just don’t understand.  It’s not like her.”

Magda realized that the man knew Mharen better than she had thought.  She glanced at Chaya, but she was inscrutable.

“No, it’s not,” Chaya said. “She hasn’t the balls to escape, Emeric.  You know her.  So you’d best find her.”

The other templars rattled, but Emeric nodded.  They left.

Chaya’s shoulders slumped.  She sat at the clinic desk with a tired groan.  Magda went to make her a pot of coffee, to do something to occupy herself, trying not to let her hands shake.

“Where do you think she is?” Magda asked.

Chaya accepted a cup.  She eyed the younger girl. “I don’t know.”

She gestured at Magda to bend closer.

“Were you lying just now?” Chaya murmured.

Magda’s brow shot up. “No, why would you…?”

The senior enchanter shook her head. “Nothing, girl.  I just thought…  Nevermind.”  She stared into the black, smoked depths of her cup.

Magda stood, clenching and unclenching her fists.  She wanted to leave, right now, and find Mharen.  She wanted to scour all of Kirkwall.  She wanted to _do_ something instead of sitting here, trapped, letting her imagination get the better of her.  She glared at the room in general, the apprentices, standing awkwardly to the side, flinched.  She tried to soften, but judging by their faces, she wasn’t much improved.

“Go check on the patients,” she told them.

Magda turned back to Chaya.  The woman, for once, looked her age.  Small frame bent and long ears slant down.

“I’ll take Mharen’s shift.”

Chaya nodded. “Let those boys go in a few hours, too.”

“I will.”

The woman sighed.

-

Magda took the evening shift, and the night shift.  Chaya didn’t relieve her until the call to service.

“Any news?” she asked.

“No,” Chaya said. “Get some sleep.”

Magda obeyed.  She was tired, and time was not stopping for one missing woman.  There would still be patients, there would still be more work.  And as powerless as it made her feel, she would have to wait for the templars to find Mharen.  Assuming Mharen needed to be found.  She wouldn’t have run away, would she?  It didn’t _seem_ like her, but…

Elsa was awake when Magda opened the dorm door.

“You should be at service,” Magda said.

Elsa shrugged. “They told you anything about Mharen?”

“No.”

Elsa chewed her lip.  She opened her mouth, closed it.

“Look, I…”

She trailed off.  Magda sat on her bed.  Her feet ached.  As she slipped off her shoes, she looked at Elsa.  She was acting strangely.  Stumbling over her words, rubbing her hands.  True, they hadn’t really spoken in weeks.  But…

Magda leaned forward. “You know something,” she hissed.

When Elsa looked at her, not saying anything, she knew she was right.

“ _Elsa_.”

“Magda, look,” Elsa stood up and paced. “It won’t help anything, so even if I tell you-”

“ _What_?  I can’t even believe you right now-”

“Look, just _listen_ ,” Elsa snapped. “Mharen came and asked me about a way out of the Gallows last week, so I told her.”

Magda stood. “What?  We have to tell the templars-”

“ _No_.  Absolutely not.”  Elsa stated, stark and firm. “We aren’t telling them anything.”

She stepped toward Magda.

“Believe me, if I thought it would help, I would.  But it’s just going to trap in other people.  Besides, what if Mharen just escaped?  You’d help set the templars on her?”

“She didn’t escape.  It’s not like her.”

Elsa’s bent her head. “No, it’s not.  Actually, I asked her.  If she would just wait, to escape… um.  Later.  With… well.”

Magda held her cool palms against her eyes, burning from exhaustion.

“So she didn’t seem like she was planning to escape?” Magda asked.

“No, she said she just needed a quick way out of and back into the Gallows.”

They were silent for a moment.  Elsa cleared her throat.

“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

“I guess not.  Like you said, wouldn’t help.”

She looked up to see Elsa relax.

“Listen, Magda,” Elsa grabbed her hand. “Listen to me.  There’s still time.  I have it all planned out.  I promise.  Just say the word, and we can be free and safe.   _Free_.”

Her blue eyes burned with hope at that word, _free_ , and made Magda feel dark and dim.  It was too much.  All of this, it was too much.

Magda shook her head.

“Elsa, no.  I wish you wouldn’t-  You don’t know what it’s like.  Every Tranquil comes through the clinic.  Everyone that escapes and gets caught, and the templars get _carried away_ on.  I can’t-” she stopped, restarted. “I’m so afraid.  And I don’t want to see you like that, either.”

Elsa’s face turned over fierce expressions. “And what about now?  The only difference between us and Tranquil are that one actually bothers to _feel_ trapped.  I’d rather be Tranquil in truth than go on living like this.”

Magda shook her head, throat thick.

Elsa sighed. “I’m sorry.  I don’t mean that.  Well, I do, but…  Listen.  A week from today.  There’ll be a distraction.  If you change your mind, go to the passage behind the storerooms.  Against the back wall, the third tile from the right opens up.  The long way from the library, understand? _The long way._  So you don’t run into the- the distraction.  Others will be there.”

“Your phylacteries?” Magda said quietly.

“Taken care of.  And if you don’t meet up with us or… if I’m gone and you need help -- You can leave a note with Trea, the cook’s assistant.  For Anders.  He’s a healer in Darktown.  He’ll help you.”

“Okay,” Magda whispered. “It won’t be the same without you, Elsa.”

Elsa swallowed.

“Yeah.  I’m sorry.  You’re a good person, Magda.  Please remember that.  You’ve been a good friend.  You deserve better.”

Magda looked down, turned away.  Elsa leaned in, hugged her fiercely.  That was Elsa.  Fierce.  Intelligent and funny.  She was glad she was finally getting her freedom.  This place didn’t suit her.

-

The next week passed in a haze of work and anxiety.  Without Mharen, and the apprentices still not able to hold a shift on their own, Magda and Chaya extended their hours to pick up the slack.  Magda did her best to make the change easier on Chaya; she would hit her for saying it, but the woman was in her seventies and didn’t need to be pulling sixteen hour shifts.

The work helped keep her mind off of Mharen.  Emeric never came back with news.  She was just there one day, gone the next, and life kept rolling on.  She was afraid she would forget the woman’s warmth, the way she still cared for every pain even after all this time.  Magda kept hoping and dreading to see Emeric at the clinic door.

And she kept vacillating between fear of and tenuous consideration of Elsa’s plan.  Simultaneously, she would imagine the glint of a fisted gauntlet and the sight of broad swathes of open land, free and full and unhemmed in by gray.  It was all terrifying.  For this, too, she was glad of her increased workload.

The day of Elsa’s… whatever it was she was planning, Magda was in the clinic.  It was mid-morning.  She’d been up working since dinner the night before.  Elsa and she hadn’t said anything in particular the last time they saw each other.  There was nothing left to say.  Magda still couldn’t muster what was needed to leave, and Elsa couldn’t stay.

“The trick to purifying blood is one of subtlety,” Magda said to the apprentice, Tidd. “Don’t try to create a ‘wash’ of magic; study the structure of veins and arteries until you can thread a small line of magic through them.  Watch.”

She demonstrated, and added a visible glow to the pulsing, rolling line of her magic around a magefire burn that had become infected.  Tidd bent forward, watching intently.

“Stay focused; the way magic hits the impurities will feel different.  You must be thorough.  Leaving behind trace impurities won’t always cause the infection to resurface, but sometimes it will.”

“There are so many veins, though…” Tidd murmured.

“That’s why you’ll diagram and label them for me tonight.”

“ _All_ of them?”

“Yes, all.  Down to the smallest ones.  And trust me, I’ll know if any are skipped.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, repairing the muscular tissues.  This has to be done over time-”

The clinic doors opened, a pair of templars entered.

“Healer Magdalena.”

Magda quickened her magic on the burn.

“I’ll be just a moment, Sers.”

“No, _now_ -”

The Silence slammed her.  It startled her so much, she lurched against the apprentice.  There wasn’t physical pain, but it left her breathless and dizzy and drained of- of something like color and music and emotion. It was a severed limb, an eye plucked from a phantom socket.  Tidd clumsily caught her, trembling, and she knew they’d done it to him, too.

The patient, a templar, hissed at the incomplete spell and the magic rushing too fast out of her arm.

The templars at the door strode forward, shoved Tidd aside, and picked Magda up by her arms.  She scrambled to gain balance, but she was disoriented, staggering.

“ _Get up_ ,” one snapped.

They dragged her out the door.

“What- what-”

“Knight-Commander wants to see you.”

The Silence blurred her.  Not just her sight, but it was all muddled -- up and down, left, right, soft sounds loud sounds, black white colors.  She felt ill.  She was terrified she was going to vomit.

But then they were at a door and the suits of armor beside her were knocking.

“Come in.”

Magda blinked.  It was the Knight-Commander’s office.  She was dropped into a chair.  She tried to breathe, to bring air to her head and slow down the pounding and stifle the sickness.  Meredith sat behind her desk.  Her eyes were flames overheated to a searing blue, and they crawled over Magda, burning down her defenses.  There was a blackened, smokey metal smell in the room.  One of the suits of armor fiddled at her hands, the cold touch of gauntlets blistering.

“Healer Magdalena,” Meredith said. “Why are you here?”

She licked her lips. “Ser?”

“Why are you here?”

“I- I don’t know, Ser.”

“Do not lie to me, mage.”

Magda stared.  She shifted in the chair, and she realized her arms were now strapped down.  Wide leather bands were buckled to the chair arms.

“I don’t-”

“This morning, shortly after service, one of the regular delivery boys for the Gallows was found in a place he did not belong.  The phylactery chamber.  He had destroyed nearly two dozen phylacteries.  Among them, Enchanter Elsa’s.”

Meredith leaned forward.  It would be better if she were furious, in a rage.  But she was calm, her tone rational, and only a mere touch of sternness at her brow.  The very picture of a responsible leader performing a regrettable duty.

“I am no fool, Healer.  I know Elsa’s been spreading her silly notions of oppression and fear.  I know how much you all admire her.  So talented.  Already an Enchanter at such a young age.  But, remember, ‘ _Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him_.’  This is not one or two mages trying to run.  It is enough to cause serious harm, and I won’t have it.”

Meredith held her gaze. “Now, I know that she has told you her plans.”

Magda’s hands clenched. _Don’t.  Don’t reveal anything_.  She tried to keep her face blank but the Silence was pressing her and compounding her lack of sleep.  Her adrenaline and fear were speeding up time and slowing down matter, and she couldn’t think.  Something in the room was burning.

“Now, all I need from you, is a simple answer.  Where is Elsa?”

“I don’t-”

A suit of armor slammed a fist on the desk.  Magda jumped.  Meredith waved away the templar.

“I’ll ask again, where is Elsa?”

Silently, Magda stared at Meredith.  If she could see herself now, she knew she’d be owl-eyed, dilated.  Meredith sighed, disappointed.  She nodded at something beyond her line of sight.

Magda’s hair was grabbed, her head pulled back.  A steel arm encased her her head, gripped.  The burning smell grew.

The other templar appeared in her sight.  A blindingly-hot star was in their hands, attached to a long, slender iron bar.  It was smoking, held at level to her forehead.

“ _No_ ,” Magda cried.  She suddenly lost her physical weakness, rising bodily against the steel limb clamped on her.

“No, you can’t- you can’t-”

A Smite hit her.  And unlike the Silence, this _did_ hurt.

A strange, gargled, stuttering sound was coming from Magda.  But she couldn’t stop it.  She couldn’t stop anything.  She was nothing.

They were starting the Rite.  She could feel it.  She could feel the feeling leaving her.  But her terror was strong and it was there and she couldn’t- she didn’t want this- no no no.  The brand was nearing, acrid and already the heat was burning her skin-

“ _The passage behind the storerooms.  Against the back wall, the third tile from the right opens up_.”

The Silence, the Smite, the Rite.  They all lifted at once.  And to her shame, Magda was so, so glad.  She had never been happier.  It would be easy to say that she hadn’t known what she was saying, that the words came from her unbidden.  But she had said them fully conscious of what she was doing.

Her head dropped, so far her hot forehead grazed her knees.  Meredith was talking, striding out the door, taking a templar with her.  The other unbuckled Magda’s restraints, pulled her up, and pushed her out of the Knight-Commander’s office.  The door was locked, and the templar ran down the hall.  Toward the storerooms.

Magda leaned against the hallway wall.  She breathed, her mind blank.

She should move.  She should do something.  She should be somewhere.  But all she could do was breathe and try not to think about what she had just done.  Her body was heavy,

No.  She couldn’t let it go like this.  No.  She pushed off the wall.

She began to stumble after the templars, after Meredith.  Then she ran.

-

And then she ran right into the pride demon.

It was in one of the back courtyards, one of the larger ones used to bypass the closeness of the halls.  The air was hot, laced with white swelter, smelling scorched.  But dry and crackling, little purple lightnings flitting around, stinging.  The demon breathed, its bulk filling the court.  It was bent over the corpse of a templar.  Several other bodies littered the ground.

It was mountainous, spiked sharp, deadly.  It spotted her.  Slowly, it smiled.  Lurid purple light spilled out of its mouth.  And worst of all, it laughed.  It wasn’t a mindless animal.  It laughed, deep and rumbling.

The long way around.  Now she remembered.

She should scream.  Call for help.  But she couldn’t- nothing was happening-

The demon charged and she flung herself out of the way, scrambling, scraping.  She ran to the other side of the court but the exit was decimated, caved in.  She turned around.

The demon was smiling.  It stood in front of the way she’d come in.  It knew.  A flash of heat, and a long whip of sizzling light appeared in its hand.  A flick of its wrist, and the whip arced toward her.

She threw herself to the ground, palms bloodied from sharp debris.  She scrambled to her feet, tripped over her robes, and banged an elbow on the stone pavers.  She cried out, crawling as quickly as she could to avoid another arcing flick of the demon’s whip.  It glanced her calf, burning the flesh and jolting up into her spine.

Magda cursed herself.  She stood, staggering, and summoned a spout of fire, aiming at the demon’s face.  It fell mildly at its feet.  The thing laughed.  She ran while it laughed, cursing herself.  Why hadn’t she ever studied offensive magic?  Outside of the few mandatory elemental spells, she didn’t even know how to begin to defend herself.  She’d always been chest-deep in medical texts, never branching out.  Elsa had reprimanded her for it, and damn her but she’d been right.  And Magda was going to die because of her own stupidity.

The demon was playing with her.  It idly lashed its whip this way and that, Magda limping as fast as her leg and her skirt would allow.  She began screaming, hoping that someone would hear, and come.  But all of the templars were probably looking for the escaped mages.  The distraction hadn’t worked, because Magda had betrayed them before everyone could notice it.  Panting, she glanced at one of the templar corpses nearby.  Well, almost everyone.

The templar twitched, groaned.  He was alive.

She floundered to the side, to avoid a crack of lightning.  She- she should get to the templar- heal him-

How fucking hilarious.  Even now, about to be burnt to an oily stain by a laughing demon, she was trying to heal someone.  A templar, even.  When just moments ago she’d been forced by templars to betray her best friend.  Did this shit never end?

The whip flashed, and Magda dove.  She landed by the templar’s side, winding herself, but she flung out her arms and _pushed_ as much healing magic at him as she could.  It was a crude, flooding wave, that would probably not last long, but it was all she could afford right now.  She rolled to avoid the whip again.

She was a little slow; it licked up her back.  She screeched.  Her body spasmed, paralyzed.  She had to move, or else-

She heard the sizzling shear of lightning again, waited for it to crush her, but instead the demon snarled, infuriated.  Magda looked up, choking on dust.

The templar was standing, his hands held high, the hot magic of the whip dissipating where it met gauntlets.  The templar’s knees trembled.  Magda forced herself up.  She was exhausted and drained; she had no magic left.  She picked up a broken piece of granite.

The demon roared.  Magda limped away from the templar, and threw the rock at the demon’s face.

“Over here, you shit!” she screamed.

The thing turned toward her.  That was all the templar needed, producing a sword from somewhere, and charging it.  The sword glinted, and the demon screeched.

Magda scooped up another rock and flung it.  The demon ignored her, looking for the templar.  But he’d disappeared, even in his heavy armor.  Magda threw yet another rock, stumbling out of the way again.  The whip crashed down where she’d stood.

The demon screamed again.  The templar had reappeared, his blade shining with dark blood.  Magda saw now what he’d done; the demon was limping like she was.  But the templar was rattling in his armor.  She didn’t know how much longer her fumbled healing would last.

The demon screamed, yet again.  She didn’t understand immediately; the templar was several paces away from it.  But then she saw the people spilling into the court; templars, led by the Knight-Captain, and a few mages.  Orsino was among them.  They cornered the huge thing, Smiting until it fell to its knees, and burning and freezing it until it was shrieking with fury.  

Magda limped to where the templar she’d healed had fallen to his knees.

She kneeled beside him.  Pulling off his helmet, she saw it was James; the young guard, his eyes rolling and his chest heaving.  He had a lyrium potion on his belt.  She plucked it up and swallowed it whole.  The sounds the demon were making now were unbearably high-pitched, ear-shattering.  Magda ignored the clamor, and laid her hands on the templar.  She closed her eyes.

His head was addled, and there were broken bones everywhere.  She cast something that would linger on his brain, working gradually as all head injuries should.  She did what she could about his punctured lungs.  Everything else would have to wait.  She didn’t have anything left.

She sat back.  They had killed the demon at some point.  They were milling about, sweating, blank-eyed.  A few were injured.

Pain raced up Magda’s back.  She’d forgotten; she was injured, too.  She shuddered, sinking.  The young templar caught her shoulder.

“Hey!” he called.

A set of robes rushed over -- Orsino.

Magda groaned. “All due respect, First Enchanter.  You are a _terrible_ healer.”

Orsino laughed. “Don’t worry, Magda.  Just a little to perk you up.”

A perfunctory lacing of magic settled on her back.  She was grateful for it.  The Knight-Captain approached.

James looked up at him, tried to stand.

“At ease, knight,” Rutherford said.  He was looking at Magda.

James stared between them. “Ser, it wasn’t her, I swear-”

“I know,” he reassured him.

Magda looked back at him. “You found them?”

“Yes,” Rutherford said.  His face was still, his brow stiff and furrowed.  She couldn’t read him.  Whether his eyes held anger or fear or… what.

“I need to speak to Meredith about them,” Orsino stated firmly.

“Of course, sir,” the Knight-Captain said.

Magda closed her eyes.  There were people moving around, things being said.  But she just couldn’t handle any more.  Not a drop, not a moment more.  Guilt and shame filled her.  What had she done?

Would this never end?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the last chapter of this "arc," after an epilogue coming at some point, before a time skip. I might be restructuring this soon~
> 
> Thank you for reading~~~


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm calling this an epilogue, even though it's longer than some of the actual chapters. But it is an epilogue in the sense that it wraps this part of the story up. I've reorganized this into a series, the whole work (also) being called "Healer" and I will be posting the next chapter in a new arc called "Enchanter." Posting it right after this, actually.

It happened several weeks after Hawke left for the Deep Roads.  Not a single word from her, and Bethany and Mother were left sitting anxiously by the fire in Gamlen’s… house.  Good riddance, Bethany felt.  How dare she leave her own sister behind.  Like a child.  As if Bethany didn’t care every bit as much as _she_ did about their fortune.  You’ll be safer at home, she said!  But the joke was on Hawke, after all, since it turned out the greater danger was at home anyway.  

The templars, led by that blond Knight-Captain of theirs, came for Bethany in the midst of winter.  The Gallows was even drearier than usual; coated in a slick of ice from the massive pavers to the very tips of the blunt hewn towers.  The templars on either side marched her through the streets, people staring and whispering, and through the heavy iron portcullis.  The courtyard was empty.  Cold air had sunk into the court, biding its time there until someone appeared to clasp onto, sink its claws in.  Bethany clutched her coat.

The templars jostled her on.  They encountered a few mages in the gray halls.  She tried to make eye contact, but they kept their heads down, passing by.  The Captain took his leave, and Bethany was put into a small room, empty but for a simple wooden chair and a templar standing in front of the door.  Lacking anything else to do, Bethany sat, and tried not to think about Mother’s expression when she left.

She fiddled with her gloves.

Glancing at the templar, she cleared her throat.

“What are we waiting for?”

The templar’s helmet did not tilt in her direction or give any other indication that Bethany had spoken at all.

She tried speaking louder. “I said-”

“You will be quiet, apostate,” the templar finally said.  A woman’s voice. “We are preparing you for confinement, and then you will have a Harrowing tomorrow.  As stated before.”  Her tone turned droll, insulting.

Bethany turned away.  The Harrowing.  She began to sweat, just thinking of it.  Would she be strong enough?  Father had told them about it. About those who failed, and what happened to them.  Bethany struggled to calm the rising panic in her chest.  She wanted her mother.  She wanted her sister.  Carver, Father.  Oh, Maker, preserve her.

She sat, quietly.  Anxiously.

Moments later, or maybe hours, there was a knock on the door.  A woman entered, about Bethany’s age, and dressed in circle robes.

She took one look at her sitting and spoke, “Stand up.  Go stand there.”  She pointed to the other side of the room.

Her tone was authoritative.  Despite being of similar age, Bethany felt a bit cowed by her severe gaze.  She stood, and did as she was told.

Bethany stifled a quaver in her voice. “Hello, I’m-”

“No talking,” the templar ordered.

The other mage dropped a bundle of what looked like clothing on the chair.  She straightened and inspected Bethany.

“Arms out, turn around slowly,” the mage said.

Bethany stared at her.

Her tone became a little impatient.  She held her own arms out. “Arms out. Turn around slowly.”

Awkwardly, Bethany did so.  What in the world?  The woman’s eyes scanned critically over her as she turned.

“That’s enough,” she said.  She stepped closer, peering into her eyes. “To your knowledge, are you suffering any ailments now?  Just nod yes or no.”

Bethany slowly shook her head no.  Apparently this woman was a healer, sent to examine her.  It was a relief to at least understand what was going on, but she definitely wasn’t the nurturing type.  Her hard eyes aggravated Bethany’s nerves.

“Have you been in contact with someone recently ill?”

She shook her head no.

“Alright, stay still,” the mage said.  She put her hands on Bethany’s neck.

Bethany jumped a little, despite being told to be still.  She was ignored as fingers pressed around her neck in a quick, expert pattern.  Next her eyes were pried open, inspected.  She was told to open her mouth and it was looked into.  The mage stepped back.

“Take your clothes off.”

Bethany stared. “What?  Now see here, that’s a bit much-”

“ _Quiet_ ,” the templar interrupted, an edge in her voice. “Do as you’re told, apostate.”

The healer gave her a look that said, ‘ _Do not make my job difficult.’_ She did not turn around, but she let her eyes slide to the side, slide in the direction of the templar.

Bethany pulled up her hands in an instinctive defensive gesture.  She looked at the templar.  The woman’s face was shadowy, indistinct behind the visor.  Her gauntlet rested on the pommel of her sword.  When Bethany was small, she’d once overheard Father telling her sister about Silencing and Smiting.  It had chilled her.

Reluctantly, she began pulling off her coat.  The other mage held out a hand. Bethany handed it to her.  Piece by piece, she peeled away her clothes, her last defense to her autonomy, her dignity.  Naked, her nervous sweat cooled in the open air.  She flushed, trying to create some modesty with just her hands.

“Show me your arms,” the healer stated flatly.

Bethany’s arms were held, turned over and scrutinized.  The healer crouched, inspected her legs.  The whole surface of her body was examined. Bethany’s stomach turned with anger and shame and indignation.

“No blood magic?” the templar asked.

“None that I can see,” the healer said. “Alright, I’m done.  Those are yours now.”  She gestured at the clothes left on the chair. The woman left without another word.

Bethany scooped up the clothes.  Circle robes.  The only thing she’d ever wear in her life from now on.  That is, if things went well.  Her old clothes were gone, taken by that healer.  Bethany frowned.  She’d tried catching her eye, but all she got back was hard emptiness.  The mages they’d passed in the halls had been the same.  She had hoped Anders’s angry rants about the Gallows had been exaggerated; after all, her father had said that he had had many friends and close colleagues in the circle.  Had she been naive, to hope that for once, when she was among others like her and she no longer had to worry about being found out as an apostate, that she could easily fall into accepting, friendly relationships?

Dressed again, the templar put a gauntlet on her shoulder.

“Alright, let’s go, apostate.”

-

“Oh! You’re- uh…”

Bethany stammered, staring at the woman in the doorway.  The Harrowing had left her exhausted; she’d left the ceremonial chamber dragging her feet and barely listening to the chatter of the man leading her through the halls.  She was taken to the First Enchanter, and a phylactery was made.  She was too drained to feel much of anything over even that.  A permanent leash.

Then she was led to her new room.  The night before she had slept in an isolated chamber with a guard all night.  This room was small, but no smaller really than what she shared with Mother, and Hawke.  Two beds, a desk.  Half the room was clearly occupied; books and papers neatly kept, a small trunk, and a few small personal touches.  The other half was clean, but void of anything other than the furniture. She’d been given another set of robes, and some linens for the bed. She was so tired, she’d just sunk into the thin mattress

She was about to lay down when the door opened.  That healer from yesterday stood frowning at her.

Bethany cleared her throat. “I’m, ah.  I’m Bethany Hawke.  I think we’re roommates now.”

The woman closed the door slowly.  Something about her expression, in the ashen darkness of her cheeks, her furrowed brow, made Bethany nervous.  She sat opposite her on the other bed.

“Your Harrowing went well, then.”

Bethany didn’t know what to say.  She nodded.

The healer began unlacing her boots. “I’m Magda Trevelyan.  I’m a healer here, which you know.  We probably won’t run into each other much.  I usually keep the clinic at night.  I sleep during the day, and I sleep lightly, so I’ll appreciate it if you keep things quiet.  I’ll do the same when I come back to the room at odd hours.”

“Of course, yes,” Bethany said.

Magda stood again, began pulling off her robes.  She did not say anything further.

Bethany cleared her throat. “Um.  Do you happen to know what happened to my clothes?  It’s just that my coat was a gift…”

Magda’s fingers stopped unlacing.  She looked at her.

“You’ll get another one.  Your old things’ve been given to the Chantry, for charity.”

“Oh. Right.”  Bethany swallowed.  She should’ve known.  She shouldn’t have worn it when they came to get her, but there had been no time to think.  She tried not to think about the Satinalia she received it on.  Carver and Hawke had bought it together for her.  That was the last Satinalia they’d all been together.  That all of them had been alive.  She tried not to let loose the tears prickling her eyes.

Magda was silent, pulling on a nightgown.

Bethany watched her, and she was reminded a little of Fenris.  So quiet. With sharp eyes.  And hard to get to know.  Maybe a joke?

“Well, it wasn’t the meeting I’d choose, but now I can count you among the people who’ve seen me naked.  It’s an exclusive group, trust me.”

Magda paused.  She turned her head away.

After a moment, she said, “Don’t take it personally.  It’s part of the job.”

“Oh,” Bethany said, bemused. “I know, I just meant-”

“I know what you meant.”

Magda sat on her bed, drawing up her legs. “Listen, I know it must be hard, getting thrown into this.  The Gallows is no paradise, Maker knows.  But I’m not someone who’ll make it easier for you.  I’m not- I’m not very personable.  This year has been difficult.”

“Oh. Sure.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Bethany trailed off, when the other woman pulled herself underneath her covers.

She had more questions, but clearly she’d have to find the answers elsewhere.

-

Magda woke abruptly.  She sat up.  The room was empty and silent.  She turned and looked at the pitiful few belongings of her new roommate. A set of robes neatly folded and lying on the made-up bed.  Circle standard linens and blankets.  She’d be given other things, once she decided on an area of study, and once she was allowed to receive things from her family.  The woman certainly didn’t seem like an ex-apostate.  Mild-mannered.  Friendly.

Magda sighed.  She knew she’d been cold earlier.  But after Elsa, it was just… too difficult.  Too difficult to face someone so bright and friendly.  And the room had been empty for so long, she’d gotten used to it.  But she knew exactly why, after living on her own for three months, she’d been given a new roommate.  She had submitted a request to have Elsa moved back in with her.  Out of the Tranquil barracks.  And this was the Knight-Commander’s reply.

Marc. Norwin.  Eva.  Osmar.  Nealson.  Mollie.  Patience.  Roddy.  Ewart. Ember.  Jaine.  Sarise.  Dorset.  Quint.  Myra.  Margaret.  Ruby. Walsh.  Dwenn.  Joslyn.  Robin.  Elsa.

These were the names of the people who were Tranquil now.  Because of her.

Because of Magda, the Knight-Commander and her templars were able to ambush the runaway mages from behind, Silencing them.  By fist and blade, they were forced to submit to recapture.  There was resistance, but no circle mage would ever be able to match the martial skill of a templar.  The mages were brought in, bruised and angry.  Then, despite Orsino’s loud protestations and his pleading with the Grand Cleric, they were all sentenced to Tranquility.  Because of the five people killed by the pride demon, and the danger their numbers had presented to the population outside the circle, Meredith’s push for the Rite met little resistance.  This all occurred within a day.

During this time, Magda had occupied her own bed in the clinic.  The lacerations on her leg and back were uglier than she’d initially believed, and that combined with the drain on her magic from Meredith and the pride demon, and she had mercifully been passed out when the group of new tranquil was marched in.  Magda did not have to see all the empty eyes, the angry red brands.  But she saw the shadow of that nightmare in Tidd and Hughes’s faces when she woke.

It was several days later, when she finally left the clinic, that she saw Elsa.  Meredith had assigned her as her own personal assistant. It made Magda sick.  The Knight-Commander was sending a message to them all: no matter how talented or clever you were, the templars would always win in the end.  Magda was almost grateful that Elsa could no longer feel humiliation or rage.  She could no longer feel anything.  But that was sickening, too.  That her friend was no longer allowed to feel what she should.

The first time Magda saw Elsa, it was in the halls, during the day.  Her leg and back wounds were bandaged and starting to itch.  Magda had stopped dead in her tracks, breath catching.  Elsa made no sign that she had seen her.  Her blue eyes vacantly stared at the hall ahead, and her steps did not alter their calm pace.  Magda had to grab her arm to make her stop.

“Can I assist you?” Elsa said.  She turned her mild, empty gaze in her direction.  Not focusing, really.  But turned in her general location.

Magda couldn’t speak.  The arm under her hand was warm.  It was real and firm.

“It’s me,” she finally whispered.  Her voice cracked with suppressed tears.

“Yes, Magda, I know,” Elsa said.

Despite herself, Magda’s heart clenched with hope.

“Can I assist you?” Elsa said.

No. There was nothing there.  This warm shell of a body held nothing anymore.  None of the old fire, none of the wicked twinkle, none of the passion Elsa had possessed.  It would be kinder if she were dead. At least then she couldn’t be used by Meredith.  An apology caught in Magda’s throat.  She wanted to say it.  She _should_ say it.  But even so, she didn’t feel deserving of forgiveness, of even acknowledgement of her reticence.  And she knew, even if she said it, that it would mean nothing to Elsa now.  Magda let go of her arm.

“No,” she said softly.

Elsa turned and walked calmly away.

The templars confiscated Elsa’s things before Magda returned to their room.  Still, she had slowly gone over the empty side of the room, searching for any trace Elsa had left behind, anything the templars had missed.  She was rewarded when found some papers hidden in a hollow in one of the bed’s legs.  On the papers were drawn diagrams, of extraordinary complexity, and instructions on how to summon a ‘demon of greate mighte.’

Included, written in an unfamiliar hand, was a note:

_E, you know I don’t like this much.  It’s dangerous.  But you’re right that there’s too many of you to do this quietly. Be careful. – A_

A. It must be that healer Elsa had mentioned before.  Anders.  Magda touched a drawing in the corner of the notes.  A slavering demon with rolling eyes.  Laughing, and flicking its whip.

Magda stood, lit the papers with the candle sitting on the desk, and furiously threw them down on the stone floor.  She watched, smoldering, as they burned to ash.

Dammit all.

-

“I don’t believe you, apostate.”

Bethany tried to lean away from the templar, but the tall woman just loomed closer.

“Believe me or not, it’s the truth.  And I’m not an apostate anymore.  I had my Harrowing, same as everyone else.”

“They shouldn’t even let your kind around the others.  Gives them ideas.”

“What ideas?  That you’ll get caught no matter what you do?” Bethany snapped.

The templar’s lips snarled.

“I don’t like your tone, apostate.”

Bethany was losing her patience.  They were alone in the hall.  One really good Fist of the Maker, and this idiot would be flat on her ass, dinging around in her armor like a bell’s clapper.  She’d be knocked out and Bethany could be gone before anyone’d be the wiser. Just one good slam…

“Something the matter, Lieutenant Ulla?”

Bethany and the templar looked up.  Another templar stood at the end of the hall.  Tall, middle-aged, red-haired.  She recognized him.  Ser Thrask.

The templar stepped back from Bethany a little.

“I found this mage wandering the halls past curfew.”

“I just fell asleep in the library, is all!” Bethany said. “I didn’t mean to.  No one woke me up when curfew came.”

“She’s the new apostate they brought in.  Looking to run, I’m sure.”

“What good would that do me?  You’ve my phylactery now,” Bethany snapped.

“Impertinent-”

“It’s Bethany, isn’t it?” Thrask interrupted. “Bethany Hawke?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I mean, yes.  Uhm, Ser.”

“How’s your sister?  And Master Tethrys?”

“They went on their expedition.  I haven’t heard from them in some time.”

The Lieutenant cleared her throat angrily.  Thrask had come near.  He turned himself toward the other templar, subtly stepping to Bethany’s side.

“Lieutenant. Why don’t we just chalk this up to Mage Hawke’s newness to the Gallows?  I’ll escort her back to the dorms, and you can attend to your duties.”

“If she’s-”

“But she isn’t tonight,” Thrask said. “And if she does later, you can blame me.  Fair?”

The Lieutenant leaned back, eyes thin and dark.

“I outrank you,” she said quietly.

He paused.  Slowly, and deliberately, he lowered his head.

“That is true, Lieutenant,” Thrask said. “Technically.”

He drew that word out, _technically_ , like a low, deep line set in stone.  Revealed by the light of Thrask’s voice, its threat turned suddenly stark.  Bethany was breathless, eyes darting between them.

The Lieutenant stared.  Then she jerked her chin up.

“Take ‘er, then.  On your head be the consequences.”

“Come along then, Mage Hawke,” Thrask said.

Bethany followed him.  The other templar watched them go down the hall, viciously white breath following after.  Thrask led Bethany through the winding paths of the Gallows.  She was still unused to them.  It was only a few days since she’d come here, but she was not certain that they were going towards the dorms.

“Thank you for your help, Ser Thrask,” she said, eyeing him.

Thrask nodded.

“Bethany, I’m actually late for an appointment,” he murmured, nodding at a guard they passed. “Do you care if I drop you off at the clinic instead?  You’re rooming with Magda- Healer Magdalena, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Bethany said. “That’s fine.”

Appointment? What appointment could he possibly be keeping so late at night?  She cocked her head at him; he seemed calm and confident, not at all nervous or anxious.  Hmm.  And now – some time with Magda.  Well, then.  This should be interesting.  She hadn’t seen the other mage awake since that first day.  Each time Bethany woke, or came back to the room, she was either gone or a blanketed lump turned toward the wall

“You know Magda?” Bethany asked.

“I do.  I brought her here.  She was so small.”

Thrask chuckled in a melancholy sort of way.

They stopped in front of a wide, open doorway.  Thrask leaned into the room, knocking on the doorframe.

“I’ve a gift for you, Magda,” he said.

The room was wide, and high, and airy.  But long, extending far back and lined with several beds fitted with starched white sheets.  A young man sat at a desk across from the open door, staring up at them. Magda stood at a nearby bed, a stack of folded linens beside her. She looked at Bethany quizzically.

“She fell asleep in the library,” Thrask explained.

The boy at the desk snorted.  Magda glared at him.  He lowered his head back to the papers and books set in front of him.

“Ran into Ulla.  I have to go, so she’ll be alright here, yes?”

The healer nodded. “Of course.  Go on.”

“Sorry to rush off,” Thrask said, tipping his head toward Bethany. “Give your sister my regards when you hear from her.”

_When_ she heard from her.  Not if.

Bethany smiled, nodding.

Thrask strode off.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Magda said, continuing with her folding. “Come on in.”

Bethany walked further in.  There didn’t seem to be any patients in the beds.  It was quite unlike Anders’s clinic.  The air smelled antiseptic, instead of fouled with Darktown stink.  The gray walls and floors were clean, well-swept.  You wouldn’t be able to get the filth out of the Darktown surfaces with fire.  Bethany stepped to the edge of the bed Magda was working at.

“Can I help?” she asked.

The other woman eyed her. “You must be tired.  It’s several hours until call to service.  You can sleep in one of the beds.  No one will bother you.”

Bethany shook her head.  She picked up a cloth.

“After running into that giantess, I don’t think I could go back to sleep.”

The boy at the desk snorted again.

Magda sighed. “That’s Apprentice Hughes.  Who should be working on his paper about restorative mixtures and their derivatives.”  She looked at the boy pointedly.

“Yes, Healer.  Right away, Healer.”

“I can add another page for the proportions that turn toxic,” she said sharply.

“No, ma’am.  I’m sorry,” he said more respectfully this time.

Bethany snorted this time.  She held up her hands defensively when Magda turned to her.

“I don’t know the proportions that turn toxic, so please don’t, Healer,” she said.

Perhaps despite herself, Magda’s dark brows unknitted and a shadow of a smirk sat about her lips.  They quietly folded for a while.

“Your sister knows Thrask?” the other mage asked.

“Oh, yes, she helped him take care of a-” Bethany stopped.  She probably shouldn’t talk about Feynriel or a runaway group of apostates in the middle of the Gallows. “Um.  I mean, my sister’s a sort of– sword-for-hire.  I guess.  She helped Thrask with a couple things in the city.”

“Hmm,” Magda mused, looking at her. “You ran into Knight-Lieutenant Ulla?”

“Wanted to take me in.  Was quite rude about it,” Bethany complained, grinning. “Thrask told _her_ , though.”

“You should avoid her for a while.  She holds grudges.  Don’t take your lunches late.  That’s when she eats.  And don’t stay too late at the library, or go to the south wing in the morning.”

Bethany looked down at the cloth in her hand. “Oh fine.  I’ll keep that in mind.  But I could take her, you know.  One good twist of force-” She demonstrated with a violent gesture of her wrist.

She stopped when she saw the look on Magda’s face.  She was alarmed, mouth slightly open.

“You were considering,” Magda said, leaning forward. “ _Attacking_ the templar?”

Bethany stared back.  She shrugged. “I just-”

Magda closed her eyes and shook her head.  She raised her voice to carry down the hall.

“James, what did she just say?”

Bethany turned around.  She jumped.  There was a templar sitting by the doorway.  She had walked right past him earlier and never took notice.  He was leaning back in his chair, balancing on two legs. His helmet was off, his face ruddy and his hair cropped, and he had a book in his hand.  He turned a page.

“Said she could thump Ulla,” he said. “Good on her, I say.”

Bethany stared at him, then she turned and stared at Magda.

“You see?” the healer said, her gaze turning intense. “You never know who’s listening, so be careful.  Threatening a templar is a serious offense.  Actually attacking a templar, with _magic_ , is instant grounds for the Rite of Tranquility.  James is a good sort, but not all of them are.”

Bethany didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Living in the circles really is different, isn’t it?”

Magda began folding again. “I suppose.  I’ve only ever known the circle.”

Bethany studied her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Magda turned to her, a quizzical set to her brow. “What for?”

“I don’t know.”  Bethany shrugged and smiled sheepishly.

It hadn’t been easy, of course.  Always living in perpetual fear of being found out as an apostate.  Always being suspicious of people as informants for the templars.  But at least she had been with family. At least they had options.  Even so, she was hopeful that things wouldn’t be all that terrible in the Gallows.  The past few days, she’d seen mages using their magic, in broad daylight, right out in the open.  She’d heard them discussing spells and theories, and it had been fascinating.  And the people weren’t all terrible.  Some to avoid, but most others just a little jumpy.

Magda flipped a cloth into an expert fold and laid it down with a firm pat of her hand.  She leaned toward Bethany.

“So, your sister’s a ‘sword-for-hire’?”

“Yes…”

“And I’d guess that you’ve helped her?”

“Sometimes…”

“Could you teach me?  Defensive magic?”

Bethany blinked. “Uh.  Sure.  Why me?”

“You’ve lived outside.  I’m betting you know more things than the preening academics in here.”

She snorted. “Okay.  But why do you want to fight with magic?  Er-” She backtracked. “I mean, learn defensive magic.”

Magda picked up a stack of folded laundry.  She opened a cabinet nearby and put it away.

“It’s my weakest area.”

She turned back to Bethany.  Her hands smoothed her robe skirt and her mouth offered a smile.

Bethany smiled back.  The other woman seemed to be making an effort to make amends.  She was a little brusque, but maybe she had her reasons. And she was trying.  The people here weren’t all terrible.  And Bethany no longer had to hide being a mage.  Yes, the Gallows might not be so terrible after all.


End file.
